The Grimm Diaries Prequels Volume 11- 14: Children of Hamlin, Jar of Hearts, Tooth & Nail & Fairy Tale, Ember in the Wind, Welcome to Sorrow, and Happy Valentine's Slay.
Authors: Cameron Jace
The Grimm Diaries
Prequels
10.5 - 14
5 teaser novellas for the upcoming release of
(plus 1 bonus in the end)
The Grimm Diaries Series
by Cameron Jace
Edited by Melody Benton and Danielle Littig.
Copyright © 2012 Akmal Eldin Farouk Ali Shebl
All rights are reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission from the author.
This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the writer's imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locales or organizations is entirely coincidental. All facts concerning fairy tales publication dates, scripts, and historical events mentioned in this book are true. The interpretations and fantasy elements aren’t. They are the author’s imagination.
Table of Contents
Foreword
It’s safe to say that this set of prequels was the hardest to write, and here is why.
I started the series, connecting fairy characters to real historical event that made sense—at least to me—because I wanted to see fairy tales characters that are fully developed in hopes that we’d end up really caring about, not pastiches from century-old books and stereotypical ideas that have been retold repeatedly in the same clichéd way.
Eventually, the idea turned into a series—and I’d like to think it’s entertaining and original—which many people care about now, and I couldn’t be happier or thank you enough for your support.
The only thing that worried me before writing this bundle was that you’d start getting confused with the overwhelming characters and plots.
That’s why it was the hardest to write.
There are a couple of prequels that didn’t make it to this set—and there will be no more prequels before the release of Snow White Sorrow. The reason is that I only included prequels that either shed a light on characters you’ve been asking about, or that moved the plot forward so you don’t get a better grab of the Grimm universe.
By doing the latter, I ended up spoiling a couple of plot ideas that were supposed to be revealed in Cinderella Dressed in Ashes. But that’s OK. Your feedback and notes helped me be more confident about the series that I know now there is so much more to the series than I thought. Spoiling those two plots doesn’t take away from the series’ mysteries.
I wrote Happy Valentine’s Slay, the first prequel in this set, mainly to take a closer look at characters and to remind you of who they are.
The second prequel, Children of Hamlin, might be information heavy but it tells the story of the Piper who is Ladle’s main antagonist. I had to do that in case Ladle gets her spin off series, which is very likely at this point. Children of Hamlin is also a rooted prequel in matters of the main plot. You will know about the origins of the Kingdom of Sorrow, a great deal of what this all about, and you’ll be able to connect a lot of dots of who is who.
The third prequel, Tooth & Nail & Fairy Tale should have been in the last bundle, but it didn’t make it. It’s a very dear prequel to me, and I think it will be favored by Ashes to Ashes and Beauty Never Dies fans. If it were totally up to me, I’d write a thousand prequels like this one.
Ember in the Wind, the fourth prequel, is one of the most important. It will tell you about a character many of you kept asking about in your emails, and it helps move the plot forward to the fifth prequel in this set.
Jar of Hearts, which features the enigmatic Queen of Sorrow, is the most revealing of all, but you can’t get there before reading the four preceding prequels. Jar of Hearts explains, if not fully, the main plot of the series. You get to know who the Lost Seven are, and why the Queen is searching for them.
There is a sixth prequel in the end that I didn’t mention before. It’s called Welcome to Sorrow, told by Igor the Magnificent, also known as Hunchy. Igor will welcome you all to the town of Sorrow in present day where Snow White Sorrow will take place. He will walk you around, tell you a bit about its geography, and the places you might like to visit. By the end of his short prequel, he should have done a good job to want you to go to Sorrow immediately.
Anyway, and as always, I talked too much, and I know you’d rather spend time with the Lost Seven, so I wish you a great read.
“This is a work of fiction. All the characters in it, human and otherwise, are imaginary, except only certain of the fairy folk, whom it might be unwise to offend by casting doubts on their existence. Or lack thereof.”
Neil Gaiman
Prologue for the Prequels
Two hundred years ago, the Brothers Grimm altered the true fairy tales, hiding the fact that its characters were immortals, secretly living among us.
They placed a curse upon the immortals, burying them in their own dreams, so they won’t ever wake up again. The immortals’ bodies would appear as if in a coma in the real world while their minds created a world of their own imagination in a realm called the Dreamworld. The Brothers Grimm once mentioned this curse in the Snow White story when she was sleeping in her glass coffin. In the original scripts, they called it the Sleeping Death.
However, the immortals broke the curse by intertwining their dreams, and were able to wake up for a brief time every one hundred years. The good ones wished to tell the truth about fairy tales. The bad ones planned to bring wrath upon our world.
Since immortals did not die, descendants of the Brothers Grimm summoned the Dreamhunters, a breed of angels that killed immortals in their dreams. The confrontations didn’t end very well.
Everything that happened in that period was documented in a Book of Sand, or what mortals call the Grimm Diaries. Different fairy tale characters wrote each diary, telling part of the story.
My name is Sandman Grimm, and my job is to seal the final edition of the Grimm Diaries every one hundred years, using a magic wand that writes on pages made of sand. After I seal the diaries, they will dissolve into sand that I pour into children’s eyes every night to create their dreams.
What follows are mini diaries I call the Grimm Prequels, scattered and buried pages that didn't make it to the main volumes of the Grimm Diaries. There are seven of them, each told by a famous character. You might want to read them before the first full-length diary called Snow White Sorrow. It will give you an idea of what this world is like.
The prequels don’t necessary hold the truth. Some characters might want to manipulate the truth in their favor. And since the prequels don’t give away much of the story, some matters could seem confusing at times.
It’s better to think of the prequels like snap shots of a magical land you're about to visit soon. I like to think of them as poisoned apples. Once you taste them, you will never see fairy tales in the same light again.
The Grimm Diaries Prequel #10.5
Happy Valentine’s Slay
As told by Willie Winkie
By Cameron Jace
Edited by: Melody Benton
The Grimm Diaries Prequel #10.5
Happy Valentine’s Slay
As told by Willie Winkie
Dear readers of the prequels,
I am Sandman Grimm; the real one.
I know the Queen of Sorrow played a little trick on you with one of her misleading diaries called Jawigi. I was surprised that most of you didn’t figure it out. Why would I, Keeper of Dreams & Sealer of the Books of Sand write a diary? I wasn’t there when all this happened. I was only hired by Morpheus, the King of Dreams, to collect the diaries and present them to you. I did my best to include the stories that rung true in the main diaries but the prequels, well, I was never sure.
A wise man once said the fact that everyone lies is a universal truth, the only variable is about what – one day, I’ll tell you who that wise man is.
So, some of the characters lie in the prequels.
Why?
For many reasons; some lie to keep their dark identity from you, some lie to protect themselves, and some lie to protect others. All these lies could have been avoidable if the incidents following Snow White’s sixteenth birthday didn’t happen – which are too soon to talk about now. How would you understand what happened, and its aftermath, if you don’t know about the characters involved and their motives?
To give you a small hint: it all started the day when the Queen of Sorrow sent for a huntsman to kill Snow White. Don’t let the beautiful Queen fool you. She desired Snow White dead, and that’s a fact.
If you read the original texts of the Brothers Grimm before they were forged, which you can actually find in many libraries, you’d come about crazy details describing how the Queen wanted to cook and eat Snow White’s liver and heart. Some of you might relate to the fact that she wanted to rip out Snow White’s heart, the source of her beauty and darkness. Or, maybe the Queen wanted to make sure no one could resurrect Snow white again. The strongest spell couldn’t bring someone back to life without their heart—or a heart. Although all suggestions above might ring true, the real question would is why did the Queen want to eat Snow White’s liver?
Why the liver?
I know chicken liver tastes good with two drops of lemon and some exotic sauce.
Was Snow White a chicken?
Of course not. I am just a silly old Sandman who likes to pretend he’s funny. Believe me, reading so many diaries messed with my head.
But then again, why the liver?
I can’t say I don’t know the answer because I do, and it makes perfect sense, logically and historically. I just prefer you discover the truth when you read the main diaries.
Whether the Queen had the right to kill her daughter or not, it will be up to you to judge.
So back to me…
Some of you might wonder if you can trust me, having been fooled in the Queen’s previous diary, Jawigi, when she used a spell and transformed herself so that she looked like me, and fooled Jacob Carl Grimm.
Well, I thought about it all night, and I decided to tell you a little something about my real name, which very, very few know. If you ever read a diary, claiming it’s me writing to you and I don’t mention my real name, then you’ll know it’s not me.
Before I tell you about my real name, which might struck you as a surprise, I need you to promise me to keep it a secret. The power of names is a dangerous thing. Most of us in Sorrow have dual identities. Exposing them puts us in great danger.
My real name is Wee Willie Winkie.
Wait!
Don’t laugh.
I was a kid like many of you were, or still are, a long time ago. Before having been promoted to the job of a Sandman, my job was to make sure children slept at the right time every night. They even wrote a nursery rhyme about me:
Wee Willie Winkie runs through the town,
Up stairs and down stairs in his night-gown,
Tapping at the window, crying at the lock,
Are the children in their bed, for it's past ten o'clock?
My name was Willie Winkie, and the children
hoorayed
‘Wee!’ whenever they saw me running around town, knocking on their windows and doors, making sure they went to sleep at the time their parents desired. I was a child, and I wore a silly nightgown that made my mission even harder. Other children laughed at me. They thought I was a loon, running around obsessed with the time all children had to go to sleep. But I couldn’t argue with the destiny I was meant to fulfill. I had accepted this job because without it I was never going to be promoted to the Sandman position later in life, which was what I had always wanted.